In a proclamation on Wednesday night, Trump said he would immediately block the Ivy League school from enrolling new international students or exchange visitors, while also ordering the State Department to review whether current foreign enrolments should have their visas revoked.
The sweeping action came as the Trump administration continued to accuse Harvard of maintaining links with foreign countries, particularly China, which it said posed a national security threat to the US.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long warned that foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions, and spread false information for political or other reasons,” the document said.
“Our adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China, try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa programme for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.”
The proclamation is effective immediately and will last for at least six months, according to the White House.
The move – along with the State Department’s announcement last week that it would “aggressively” revoke Chinese students visas – is expected to further deepen tensions between the US and China, whose trade negotiations remain stalled.
